Succulents and More™

April is getting away from me. Before we know it, summer will be here. I’m not kidding – we’ve already had a few days with daytime highs in the upper 80s. Before temperatures ramp up even more, which will speed the demise of the spring flowers, I want to show you some highlights from the front garden. This is a great time of year because everything still looks fresh and perky. Below is a favorite vignette of mine at the moment. The light is particularly good in the late afternoon. Geum ‘Scarlet Tempest’ on the left, living up to its promise of a long flowering season, and Persian stonecress ( Aethionema grandiflorum ) on the right These Mexican tulip poppies ( Hunnemannia fumariifolia ) are volunteer seedlings, and more than welcome Even when they’re not in flower, the bluish green leaves of Hunnemannia fumariifolia look great Backlit silver torch cactus ( Cleistocactus strausii ) and variegated Bromelia pinguin ‘Qué será’, beautiful but wickedly armed Myriopteris lanosa , one of se...

Visiting other people’s gardens is always fun, but it’s even better when it’s a fellow blogger whom you’ve followed for a while. Through their posts, you see their garden change and evolve, and you become familiar with it to the point where you think you know it well. But when you actually see it in person for the first time, there can be unexpected surprises. I remember the first time I visited Loree ( danger garden ) in Portland, I was stunned because I had expected her house to be on the other side of the street. I was going, “Nooooo, that isn’t right!” Weird how you create a certain picture in your mind, based on nothing at all. Tracy on her front porch, with a pretty darn impressive staghorn fern Fortunately, there was no such surprise when Loree and I visited our mutual friend Tracy in Livermore a few weeks ago. Tracy is relatively new to the blogosphere – she started her blog tz_garden in February 2023, so just two years ago. But she posts frequently, documenting the ongoing tw...